[D&D] Philosopher's Stone War III

Approved by LightWolf - Hosted by Raikage and jumpluff - Idea and original PSWs designed and hosted by vonFiedler

Another time. Another place.

Nicolas Flamel furrowed his brow. Gelu’s desire for greater canine communication was interesting, and Tony Marvel’s fun and games were amusing enough, but the recent winners were being far too frivolous with their wishes.

It was necessary to inject some seriousness back into the war.

The old man observed the legendary hunk of rock next to him. The Lia Fail. Yes, this place would do nicely. This time would do nicely. The modern age bred a different kind of mage to the practitioners of this era. More focused, more serious, and more desperate. And then there was the issue of cell phones back in 2012...

1972, Dunshaughlin. The Troubles.

Beneath the surface of turmoil and conflict, you are a magician. A practitioner of the arcane arts. You are well aware of a much different war, one that involves eight legendary Champions and eight Masters to guide them, including yourself. Only one duo will come out victorious, and have the Philosopher’s Stone at their disposal.

Newcomer FAQ

Q: Why is there so much to read?
A: Well, it’s because it includes the Newcomer Guide, which is really, really long. Never fear, however. You don’t actually need to know everything in the guide. LightWolf, the winner of the first edition of the game, didn’t even understand how half the things worked until the end of the second. Just ask the hosts for help if you’re not sure. It does help to save time if you read the guide carefully, however. If you must skip, I recommend you at least read the ‘PSW-Specific Features’ section.

Q: Do I need to know how to D&D or pencil & paper games to sign up?
A: No.

Q: What requirements do I need to sign up then?
A: You need IRC, commitment, a creative mind, and the ability to prioritize having fun over winning at all costs. A single Philosopher’s Stone War usually lasts about 3 months and a single player is usually involved in about 5-10 encounters which last about 2-5 hours over IRC, depending on how long they get to stay alive. Also, while we’ll try our best to help any newcomers to D&D, you still need to learn at least a few aspects of the system, and the game is pretty complex even compared to other games like Mafia. Lastly, due to the nature of these games, you are not allowed to sub out. So make sure you are absolutely committed. We will devise a fitting punishment for people who default on their responsibilities!

Creativity is highly encouraged because of the open nature of pen & pencil games. You can literally try to do almost anything that would be possible if the situation occurred in real life. Also, the game is heavily myth and lore based, so it helps if you have some knowledge on those subjects (or have Wikipedia).

There will be a few times in the game where you might have to compromise on your chances of winning for the overall benefit of the game. For example, sometimes people with clashing timezones can’t both be on at the same time to have an encounter, so one of them will send me a battle plan and I’ll run their characters for them instead.

Q: How exactly is this game run?
A: If you’ve ever watched/read Fate/Stay Night or Fate/Zero, you’ll already have a general idea of how this game works. 8 players compete to be the last man standing. Each player will control 2 characters, their Master and their Champion. The Master character is a spellcaster who is much more vulnerable, while the Champion is the main battle unit. Everyone’s Master is the same class, but each Champion has a unique class. You also get 2 order spells which are basically extra lives. You work together with the DM (me) to create these 2 characters (this is especially true for beginners), and then each day you send in a day plan directing what you want to do. When a situation that requires more closer attention to detail (most commonly a fight) occurs, I will call the necessary players up on IRC and run it in real time.

Newcomer Guide

www.d20pfsrd.com, the site that contains the information you need, also contains the information you do NOT need. The site needs to be comprehensive and thus covers many things that you don’t need to know. We have thus written a newcomer guide for PSW. Reading this guide, coupled with assistance from us, should allow you to play this game with no problems.

Warning: this guide is pretty long, but not as long as it’ll take you to go through the SRD.

The guide is viewable here. It is the collaborative effort of the hosts and several veteran players, and the collective knowledge gained from two previous Philosopher's Stone Wars. We hope you find it makes immersing yourself into the game much less confusing!

Sign-Ups

Now you've read through the post, and maybe taken a cursory look at the guide (don't worry, you can do it upon being accepted if you like), please indicate your interest in competing in PSW III in this thread, and hop by #flamel on SynIRC if you're not there already so we know you can use IRC. If you don't know how, don't worry -- we've had some participants who don't know how to use IRC before, and we're all too happy to help you get access, so let us know if you need assistance. It will, however, be the main means of communication in PSW, so make sure you ask if you don't feel confident.

Sign-ups will probably close within 2-3 days, in order to gauge response, so please sign up as soon as possible so we know you're interested. Thanks!Sign-ups are now closed. Due to a huge demand, we couldn't let everyone in; it was extremely difficult for us, and we're really sorry to those who didn't get in. Thank you for signing up, and we hope you'll sign up next time (the mods allowing...) -- having signed up this first time will make it very, very easy for you to get in next time.

Moderator

Oh, yeah, just wanna reiterate since our only signups so far are two-time veterans (<3) and the designer of the first two games -- we went to such effort to incorporate new people (making the newcomers' guide is one example of this) because we really want to add some fresh blood to the player pool, so please don't be intimidated! Ultimately it's a pvp role-playing game, a creative and social experience, rather than a simple competition. Old players and hosts alike will help you, so if your beginner status is the only thing holding you back from signing up, sign up.

As you may have noticed, we decided to leave out most of the veterans and picked only one (AG) because they've already played quite a lot. Sorry guys! :( Quagsires and HD return for their second chance. I apologize to all the new players who didn't get in due to overwhelming demand, do sign up again for the next PSW and you're quite likely to be accepted!

I now need everyone's Champion preference list, to be PMed to me and jumpluff. This should look something like this:

Basically, rank the classes in order of preference. I strongly suggest that you check with us first if you want to play a certain class only because of the Champion, as the character you have in mind may not be acceptable.

The doubled saves really kind of slipped past me. When we decided to make Masters beefier in order to get rid of AoO messiness, there really wasn't a point in buffing the saves. Now for Will saves it's possibly more effective to target enemy Champions than other Masters. And that is just wrong.